Based on a request from the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Latvia, ECDC and WHO/EURO conducted a joint country visit from 22 to 26 October 2012, with the objective of providing a comprehensive overview of tuberculosis prevention, control and care in the country.
One in five TB patients in EU/EEA has extrapulmonary tuberculosis. This ECDC video documentary featuring two patient stories illustrates how difficult the diagnosis of extrapulmonary TB can be. The disease is easy to miss: symptoms are unspecific and clinicians may not consider it in their differential diagnosis.
The fifth report launched jointly by ECDC and the WHO Regional Office for Europe follows on from reports under the EuroTB project established in 1998
The 2015 Millennium Development Goal target of halting the prevalence and death associated with tuberculosis and reversing its incidence was partially achieved in 2011. Nevertheless, with prevalence of TB estimated at 56 cases per 100 000 population in the WHO European Region and TB mortality at 4.9 deaths per 100 000 population it will not be possible to reach the target of 50% by 2015.
Every day, around 200 people fall sick with tuberculosis (TB) across the EU/EEA, signalling that there is no room for complacency when it comes to TB prevention and control even in times of financial austerity. To mark World TB Day on the 24 March, ECDC and the WHO Regional Office for Europe release new surveillance data today.
The sixth edition of the Annual Epidemiological Report on communicable diseases in Europe provides a comprehensive summary of surveillance data for 2010 and an analysis of the public health threats detected in 2011 through ECDC’s routine epidemic intelligence.
On 28 December 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved bedaquiline, a new diarylquinoline antimycobacterial drug, as part of combination therapy to treat adults with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) when other alternatives are not available.